THE EMOTIONAL DEPTH THAT GOES INTO HEALING FROM TRAUMA

Though I’ve written a ton about Kim Kardashian on this blog, she’s actually not my favourite Kardashian. On the contrary, Khloe Kardashian is my favourite. She seems like the most relatable one of them all. We also have something in common – we were both involved in car accidents. She was involved in a car accident when she was 19, and it affected her long-term memory, which is also something I struggle with myself. I only vividly remember my parents and my grandparents. The rest of my relatives, however, I only know through stories. I also have no actual memory of my husband ever proposing to me. I only know how it happened what’s been mentioned, so I know him as my boyfriend a lot better than a fiance. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but it is what it is. Sh*t happens in your life sometimes, and all you can really do is deal with that sh*t.

Though Khloe Kardashian is my favourite Kardashian sister, it seems as though she’s been mostly known for her personal life in recent years. She’s been in the news in recent years for her relationship with Tristan Thompson, who cheated on her not once, not twice, but THREE times throughout their relationship. The first time, at least publicly, was when Khloe was 9 months pregnant with her daughter in 2018 with random girls at a nightclub. The second time was with Khloe’s younger sister’s now former best friend a couple of years later. And the third time was on his birthday which resulted in the other woman getting pregnant. That’s not even the worst part of it all, though. The worst part was that he and Khloe went through IVF and had an embryo transfer just before the news of the other woman’s pregnancy and the baby’s arrival was made public. Thompson did the unthinkable and tricked Khloe into having the baby. It seems that they’re not together anymore, but who the heck knows…

But anyways….

I think it’s time to get back to our actual scheduled topic of discussion, which was Khloe Kardashian’s interview with Jay Shetty on his ‘On Purpose’ podcast. There was something that she said that really caught my full attention. It was her asking the question, What is the right amount of time to cope with trauma?’ Kardashian’s answer to her own question was that there was no right or wrong amount of time for anyone to cope with trauma and grief, and personally I couldn’t agree with her more. Healing doesn’t have a due date.

I’ve had two traumatic events happen in my life. The first happened when I was raped, and the second happened when I survived a car accident. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I write about these two specific life events a lot. Even when I don’t write about one or the other, I somehow relate the topic in question to either one of the two. You, as a reader, might not be able to see the connection, but I as someone who’s lived that experience, do.

I recently binge-watched ‘Never Have I Ever’, and there was a particular scene that really struck a chord with me. It was where the main character, Devi, had a vision of a loved one that triggered her, and her boyfriend’s mom came to make sure she was okay after she ran to the bathroom. Her boyfriend’s mom, in turn, says to Devi, Grief is strange. It comes in waves, and all you can do is feel your feelings and just move through it.’ I resonated with that. Devi was grieving the death of her father , which is completely different than what I went through. Some would say I wasn’t grieving anything or anyone.

The truth of the matter is, however, is that I was grieving. I was grieving myself and the person I used to be. A part of me had died the night I was raped, and another part of me died in the aftermath of the car accident. It took me years and years and years to get to a healthy place. It’s been 8 years since the car accident and 15 years since I was raped. I’m getting better day by day. I’m stronger and wiser day by day. I’m the same me before I was raped, but stronger and wiser. This doesn’t mean I don’t have my moments of grief on occasion. I still have my days of mourning and reflection.

Some may say that it’s time to move on from my past. But there’s no moving on from the past, but rather moving forward. It’s sad that I’d had to endure what I’d endured, but I also see these two instances as blessings in disguise. In hindsight, I NEEDED to be raped and survive a car accident. I needed to be diagnosed with epilepsy and go through infertility. And finally, I NEEDED to have cerebral palsy. These factors of my life factored my life and shaped me as a person. They made me who I am today, and I couldn’t be more grateful because they made me stronger. But they don’t define me. They’re not WHO I am, nor is it WHAT I am. I just wish more people out there saw that about me.

I’ve been reflecting on my friendships recently, past and present. My past friendships ended for different reasons, and yet, somehow, for all the same reasons. We spent too much time together and we got in too deep. With that, there were many sub-reasons why each individual friendship ended. They only saw me for what I’d endured and nothing else. They’d want to consistently talk about either my disability, illness, rape, and car accident,but nothing more. Some would laugh about it. Some would act like they’re my psychologists. Some would act like they want to save me. And some would consistently just ask questions about either one of those matters nonstop to the point where it was annoyingly invasive.

I want to talk more about people trying to save me or thinking that they CAN save me. That’s what this particular blog post is about. Most of my former friends thought they could save me from my trauma and somehow make everything go away. They figured they could heal me. But they couldn’t, and I didn’t want to be healed. Certainly not by them. Not by anyone, for that matter. Healing is something that is done by someone’s own rules. everyone does it differently. Everyone has their own timeline. And no one should ever be told how to heal or how long it should take them to heal.

Wikipedia’s definition of healing is as follows:

With physical trauma or disease suffered by an organism, healing involves the repairing of damaged tissue(s), organs and the biological system as a whole and resumption of (normal) functioning. Medicine includes the process by which the cells in the body regenerate and repair to reduce the size of a damaged or necrotic area and replace it with new living tissue. The replacement can happen in two ways: by regeneration in which the necrotic cells are replaced by new cells that form “like” tissue as was originally there; or by repair in which injured tissue is replaced with scar tissue. Most organs will heal using a mixture of both mechanisms.

Within surgery, healing is more often referred to as recovery, and postoperative recovery has historically been viewed simply as restitution of function and readiness for discharge. More recently, it has been described as an energy‐requiring process to decrease physical symptoms, reach a level of emotional well‐being, regain functions, and re‐establish activities^[1]

Healing is also referred to in the context of the grieving process.

In psychiatry and psychology, healing is the process by which neuroses and psychoses are resolved to the degree that the client is able to lead a normal or fulfilling existence without being overwhelmed by psychopathological phenomena. This process may involve psychotherapy, pharmaceutical treatment or alternative approaches such as traditional spiritual healing.

BUT….

There’s a lot of things wrong with this definition. It only talks about the physical aspects of healing, which is important as well. But physical scars fade away fairly quickly. Emotional ones, though, don’t. That’s where the real hard work takes off. When we talk about health, we mostly talk about physical health, Emotional and mental health is just as important, if not more important. Whether it takes you weeks, months, or even years to emotionally and mentally heal from your trauma, no matter what that trauma might me, you should so f*cking proud of yourself.